The Arcade Fire Fucking Blows

And I can prove it...scientifically


Today saw the long-awaited new release from indie darlings The Arcade Fire. Everybody seems to be a fan of them, from musicians to critics to Serious Music Lovers. Though this is only their third album, each one is treated like an "event". Each album gets rave reviews and numerous accolades, and we as the music-buying public are supposed to applaud the band for showing us the Right Way to make music, I guess.

Frankly, this shit has got to stop.

This all began with the Arcade Fire's debut album, Funeral. It had near universal acclaim, scoring in the 90s on MetaCritic. It was hailed as a triumph, with beautiful musicality and a heartbreaking story of the deaths that surrounded the creation of the album. Very touching, very moving, and truly an Experience for the listener. If only all music was this good!

I never understood this. When I listened to Funeral, all I heard was an overblown yet turgid piece of tuneless crap, which shows absolutely no sense of musicianship or songcraft, nor any appreciation of the concept of "melody". There was so much wrong with this album, that I probably would never give it a second listen.


Actually, to tell you the truth, it wasn't that bad. It's only bad in comparison to the ridiculous expectations that the breathless reviews provided. It's a pretty forgettable record on the whole--there a couple of half-hooks that might stick in my head, but for instance, I wouldn't keep a record of how incredibly incompetent the drumming is if I hadn't read all the ridiculous praise heaped on this album. It will be at the top of album-of-the-decade lists all over, it's been hailed by some as an album-for-the-generation, and all I can think is "this band doesn't even know how to write a goddamn chorus". And it still wouldn't be as bad if it weren't for the fact that every time I read a review of a band that I like that they attempt to compare the band to The Arcade Fire. I'm sorry, Do You Like Rock Music? in no way sounds like anything the Arcade Fire would ever write or even possibly consider writing. It's actually good, dammit.

I've said this before in various forms, but I can sum up my feelings about the Arcade Fire in this way. They're inessential--their schtick has been done endlessly before, by numerous better bands. If I wanted an exercise in tuneless songcraft, I'll put on Slanted & Enchanted and at least be fucking entertained. If I wanted an album that explores the tensions between life and death and channeled grief into beautiful music, I'd look to eels' Electro-Shock Blues, one of the most gorgeous albums ever made and which runs the gamut of emotions, all to amazing beautiful music. Hell, if I felt I was in the mood to listen to random Canadian collectives, I'd throw on some Godspeed You! Black Emperor if I wanted the avant-garde or Broken Social Scene if I wanted a group that can at least write a decent melody every 2 of 5 songs. If I wanted just pure swelling emotion through an indie-rock veneer, I'd go with something like British Sea Power or The Walkmen. Jesus, there are millions of better goddamn choices than the fucking Arcade Fire.

For this post I decided to listen to Funeral again. And when I realized that I was getting angry writing down everything that was wrong with the album, I decided to listen to it another time. I ended up listening to this album a total of 3 times, and it did not improve on any listen. I've listened to this album at least 10 times, which is amazing for a band that I don't care for. But you know what? I did it for you, the reader. And here I am, going track-by-track through the mess that is Funeral

The album begins fine enough, with the first of four "Neighborhood" songs. Is there a theme running through these songs? Is there a reason why they're broken up into two sections by another song, and not referenced in the other half of the album? No. That would make too much sense. But at least "Neighborhood #1" has a vague sense of propulsion and forward momentum going for it. There is chordal movement, and not only that, it makes musical sense. It builds and builds and...just kind of plateaus, as the singer sings more and more out of key. There's a drum fill that seems to indicate a chorus at about the 3 minute mark, but that just leads to another verse. Oh sure, the lyrics are written as a chorus, but IT'S THE SAME GODDAMN MUSIC AS THE VERSE. This is an infuriating pattern which repeats itself OVER AND OVER AGAIN over the course of the album. There's no goddamn resolution to any of this.



The next "Neighborhood" song features more irritating vocals, this time processed to shit and double-tracked with another out-of-tune track. I'm really not a person to harp on singing, since I myself cannot sing (despite my karaoke renditions of "It's Not Unusual") and love many bands that barely know how to sing, but I mean, these are just bad. At least this song has a bridge. Sure, it really kind of goes nowhere, but we have to give them credit.

Then we break up the Neighborhoods with the pretentious French-titled song. Look, we get it, you're from Canada, you know French. It's not helping your case--please use second languages sparingly, when they add to a song, like in "Psycho Killer" or in "Vamos". This song is otherwise harmless enough, kind of pleasant, until the random rave-up at the end. Completely unnecessary, and totally out of place.

Then another Neighborhoods song, where WE'RE GOING TO ROCK THE FUCK OUT! Hell yeah! Let's vamp on two chords for five minutes, and do nothing worthwhile over the top of it! Jesus fucking Christ, if you're going to do a two-chord song, pick two chords that you can sing over. Inexfuckingcusable.

Then A FINAL NEIGHBORHOODS SONG. Some boring finger-plucked guitar, and is kind of pleasant, then fades out without a real resolution. Lazy as fuckall.

"Crown of Love" is next, which I like to call the bastardization of "Save the Last Dance For Me". While not exactly the same, it hits enough of the same points to piss me off. Save yourself the time and listen to the Walkmen cover that song on Pussy Cats. It would be bad enough as it was, but then 3/4 of the way through the song randomly morphs from a fucking waltz to a goddamn four-on-the-floor kind of stomp, for no fucking reason whatsoever. And then it fades out. Of course it does.

"Wake Up" is one of the better songs on the album, but that's only because the riff is similar to the one used by Japandroids on "I Quit Girls". Since the Arcade Fire came first, due props their way, but the other guys did more with it. This song has an honest-to-god chorus, which again gives it a leg up on the competition. THEN IT FUCKING SQUANDERS EVERYTHING by morphing into fucking "Walking On Sunshine" at the four-minute mark.

The next song "Haiti" does us all a favor and has somebody not named Win Butler singing the song. Regine gives us this respite, at the very least. Frankly, after suffering through 7 songs up to this point I'm willing to forgive the obnoxious flute riff and the lack of actual melody.

This leads into easily the most excitable track from the album, "Rebellion (Lies)". I would be one of those that liked this song, but of course I thought about it for more than 2 seconds. At least there's a melody here, a very sing-song nursery rhyme type riff that repeats over...and over...and over again. The counter-melody of "lies lies lies" also has this same quality. The song has a nice forward momentum, which it completely squanders BY NEVER FUCKING GOING ANYWHERE. THERE'S NOT A REAL CHORUS IN THIS GODDAMN SONG. IT'S THE SAME FUCKING CHORDS, IT'S THE SAME FUCKING DRUM PATTERN, IT'S THE SAME FUCKING EVERYTHING! Hold, on let me channel Mugatu for a moment:

Just because you repeat something a dozen times, doesn't make it important. "Underneath the covers" doesn't mean jack-shit.

The album ends with "In the Backseat", another slow song that is almost pleasant. IT'S SAYING SOMETHING IMPORTANT! YOU CAN TOTALLY TELL! SO IMPORTANT WE WON'T ARTICULATE WORDS, BUT JUST SING NOTES! YES! I CAN FEEL IT! TAKE ME FUCKING THERE!...Then the song just filters out, and does nothing.

We can essentially boil down the issues to this: the band can't write a chorus, it can't write an ending, it can't write a halfway decent melody or hook, and the drummer has to be either the crappiest drummer on the planet, or the laziest fucking human being ever recorded. This guy makes the drummers for AC/DC and the Dandy Warhols look like fucking Keith Moon and Neil Peart.

Oh yeah, the band also has ridiculous extraneous percussionists. That's right, the Arcade Fire is the goddamn Slipknot of indie rock.

There's no real use in going over the other albums.. Neon Bible had their best approximation of a real goddamn song with "Keep the Car Running", but then it is filled with crap like "Black Mirror" which again violates the "no unnecessary foreign languages rule". And fuck them for naming the album after the other book by John Kennedy Toole, who wrote the amazing A Confederacy of Dunces, one of the great American novels. And The Suburbs? You're from Canada, you don't know what the hell a suburb is. Go to hell.

So there you go, scientific proof that The Arcade Fire Fucking Blows. Make good use of this information, and spread it to the masses. Hopefully, one day, the history of this band will be written correctly.